Fourteen
by Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro
Summary: Facing her own death in just a fortnight's time, Rukia meditates on the fourteen days leading up to Kaien's death. A series of shorts based on the story of Bleach from Rukia's point of view. 24
1. Chapter 1

"Kuchiki Rukia, your execution will take place fourteen days from now."

They had brought the date forward.

But who were they? And why? The message had been delivered by white-clad guards with veils over their faces, though the number of days meant very little to her now. If not for the sun turning in the sky outside, she might have lost track of time completely.

And it was strange to no longer reckon in decades. Centuries. Two weeks seemed such a human frame.

Why hadn't Byakuya come, she wondered.

That night, the _sereitei _was quiet. If Ichigo had tried to reach her, he had failed, she realised.

And if he had tried and failed, then he was dead.

She turned onto her side and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Only fourteen days of feeling this way.

Only fourteen.


	2. Chapter 2

The memories were vivid now, particularly at night, so that it seemed to Rukia sometimes that she was living in the distant past and not in the present at all. And they came to her like small treacheries, impinging on her dark hours in the Shrine. She was letting herself recall things she'd pushed aside long ago, events she'd forgotten, conversations that had seemed inconsequential and yet, with no more time left, she found meanings in them that had resisted the course of time.

"Don't be a fool," Kaien had said that afternoon when she'd handed over a silver coin to buy corn from a shopkeeper in Rukongai and had told him to keep the change: "The people round here; they're all thieves and criminals, Rukia! You're crazy of you think you're doing any good by giving them" – A hesitation, and then his realisation – "Ah, that is….. Rukia, shit. I'm really sorry."

She said nothing. This was Inuzuru, the place where she'd grown up.

As a child, she'd always tried to make sure she was back home, with the other kids, long before dusk on the days when the ships came in. Being here now, with the smells of fresh meat and of corn roasting over open flames, awoke a deep nostalgia in her, of a time before she had met Renji when she'd spent her evenings and often her nights curled up in these dusty alleys, stealing what she could and going hungry when she couldn't.

In this low light, at least, she thought, Kaien couldn't see her expression.

They were silent as they walked down to the river. At night, the streets here cleared of honest folk. In the presence of two _shinigami _even the ubiquitous low-lifes made themselves scarce. "You mad at me?" Kaien asked after a time. The beach between Seventy-Eighth and Seventy-Ninth was deserted. Only the moon's reflection on the blue glass of the water served to light their way: "You were born here, weren't you? In Rukongai?"

"It doesn't matter," she said.

Suddenly, he had grabbed her arm and turned her to face him:

"Like hell it doesn't! You should be mad at me, Kuchiki!" He waited until she looked up then continued with vigour: "I don't ever know what's going through that head of yours! I mean, we've known each other for years, but sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all and sometimes it feels like I couldn't begin to imagine a world without you. Yet you, you were born out here, weren't you?" he spread his arms to take in the city and the slums and the river: "All this time and I never even asked you!" Rukia blinked. His words had made her skin prickle with a sudden self-awareness, but she had no time to consider them as he pressed one finger to her brow: "Makes sense because you're a survivor. That's what you are. Don't forget that, Kuchiki."

"Yes, Sir."

"Why can't you get mad at me, Kuchiki? Why can't you ever get mad at me?"

"Because – because I'm not!"

"I know you're willing to fight. I think you might even be willing to die, but, for someone who's learnt to survive, you sure as hell don't put up much of a fight for yourself."

"I don't really understand, Sir."

"I insulted you back there! I said you were a thief, a criminal - and you just took it!" He stared at her confused expression. "And it's the same in the squad; the ones who talk behind your back, say you've got to where you are all because of your brother. You never challenge them! And you could. Just once, you could show them what you're actually capable of." He tugged at his kimono and started walking again, his strides so wide that she had to jog to keep up. "You're extraordinary, Rukia, and it bothers me that you don't seem to know that."

She stopped:

"What?"

"You see?"

"Why – why are you saying this, Kaien-_dono?"_

"Because who else is going to tell you? Byakuya?" He gave a dry laugh: "Sometimes I think he's the one that did this to you." She bit back a rebuke. Did what? That would be a safe response. Safer still might be to ask what he was insinuating about her brother and to reassure him that, for all his faults, Byakuya had never once been cruel, but she didn't say anything. "So here's a question," said Kaien, stopping again. The path was uneven and he was standing a little ahead of her on the slope, serving as something of a welcome rain-block to the light shower that had started. "What do you want, Kuchiki Rukia?"

"What do I" - ?

"Want." She stared at him. He sauntered back until he was right beside her, then he leaned down and whispered into her ear: "Has no-one ever asked you that?"

"No! It's not that….. It's just….." She gazed up at him. So cocksure, so confident; the rain plastered his dark hair to his head. There were a thousand and one things she could say. Right now she would rather die than confide some of them, but the truth was, it had been a hell of a long time since anyone had asked her that and longer still since she'd given a response that wasn't carefully censored and considered.

"Why did you become a _shinigami?" _he tried.

"My _reiatsu _meant I was different from the others. After you've watched your friends die, what choice do you have save to seek those who will live as long as you?"

"So you didn't choose it?"

"Back then, I guess not."

"And throwing your lot in with the Kuchiki clan. Whose choice was that?" She didn't answer. "Joining the Thirteenth Division, the squad that just happens to be headed by one of the very few men whom Kuchiki Byakuya actually trusts. Who chose that?"

"I get your point."

"So why?" He tapped her forehead again and she swayed back. "You're not stupid, Kuchiki."

"Because I don't know what I want! I thought I did, but now all I know is what I don't want!" She hesitated. His brows had lifted at her outburst and, all at once, she regretted it.

"Well, what don't you want? That's a start."

"I don't want to go home," she said, turning so that she didn't have to meet his eye. The rain was falling more heavily now, soaking through her kimono, licking over her neck and shoulders and dripping from her hair onto the bare skin of her arms: "That house is empty. We have servants and maids and butlers, but it's empty in a different way." He said nothing for once, and his silence, coupled with the soft hiss of the rain falling on the surface of the river made her able to go on: "And sometimes I think that if you weren't here, then I would probably run away and never go home. Then I start to wonder where I would go and I realise that there is nowhere."

When she looked up, he had undone the sash at his waist and shrugged off his black kimono, leaving just his _juban _beneath. Without much grace, he threw it over her shoulders and pulled it up over her head so that she seemed to be wearing a thick black hood:

"You're getting wet, Kuchiki."

"Sorry, Sir."

"You know what I think?" he said as they began to walk again: "I think I would seriously consider you for the position of a seated officer in our squad" –

"What?"

"You've learnt _shikai _and two sword incantations. Your progress is outstanding. I don't want this to go to your head though. After all, there's not many people who are taught personally by Shiba Kaien, so you've probably had an unreasonable advantage. That's all I'm saying."

"I would – I would like that, but I was going to wait" –

"For what? For a recommendation? For your next mission? A week? A month? A year? Until you've achieved _bankai?" _She laughed, actually laughed out loud at that and he grinned: "Stop waiting," he said: "Because who knows where you're going to be a year from now."


	3. Chapter 3

That night, he had walked her home, as he usually did, and she stood in the shelter of the gates and returned his uniform to him, pausing to run her fingers through her damp hair. With her back against the stone gatehouse of the old mansion she all too frequently found herself overcome by a strange melancholy. Something about this place. A year from now, she found herself thinking, I hope that I am anywhere but here.

"You really are just like her," Kaien said and she looked up:

"Who?"

"Kuchiki Hisana, his wife." She narrowed her eyes, wondering if he was going to tease her somehow, but he carried on in serious tones: "I only saw her twice; once on the day they were married, when all the officers of the _Gotei _were required to attend, and once when I came to this house looking for the captain and she was standing at the shrine in his quarters – their quarters, I suppose."

"I look like her?"

"She was very beautiful."

Rukia looked down very quickly, her cheeks so hot she might have started to glow, but he only chuckled:

"I never did get to know her. People talked. I mean, a captain of the _Gotei _Thirteen, a nobleman, and a woman plucked from the slums of Rukongai; they were bound to talk. And your brother, in his day, had a fair few admirers amongst the ladies of the _sereitei. _I think he disappointed them. But she must have been something to catch his eye, right?" Despite herself, Rukia discovered she was curious:

"Was she a soul reaper?"

"No. You'll still hear people say to this day that she had a fierce spiritual pressure and that he was the one who prevented her from joining the squads, but I don't believe them. The woman I met had a more powerful _reiatsu _than most of the souls in Rukongai, but she wasn't at the level of a soul reaper. It was something else that he saw in her."

"What?"

He shrugged:

"People fall in love."

She said nothing, but it wasn't something she could imagine. The only thing Byakuya showed any interest in now was his position within the _Gotei _Thirteen and the calibre of the men who served under him. She might have asked more, but that, at that moment, something smashed into the stillness of their evening and broke it all apart. "What the hell?" cried Kaien.

Rukia had staggered forward, any words she might have spoken ripped from her throat by the sudden impact. Kaien steadied her, but it was the air pressure that had changed. Nothing else. Increasing dramatically, surrounding them with a hissing static, it carried, in amongst the chaotic storm of rising energy, the sense of a familiar _reiatsu, _and Rukia felt herself go cold as she realised what she was sensing:

"_Nii-sama!"_

"The hell? Rukia!" Kaien cursed as she jostled him, unsteady on her feet as she ran out into the rain. That spiritual pressure! It felt as if he could turn the world sideways, the rain falling upwards instead of down, the ground banking dangerously beneath her feet. She had never before been present when Byakuya released his power, but all that she could think was that, to do so, he must be in danger, and she could only seek to imagine what could possibly endanger such a man.

And, though she knew that if it was a threat to him then she wouldn't stand a chance, still nothing in the world could have prevented her from running towards the source of that pressure.

Her sandals slapped in the muddy puddles. It was a familiar path, the one that led from the mansion up towards the shrines. Unpaved. Winding. She ran and ran, until the trees closed in above her head, then, all at once, released her and she found herself on the edge of a lake, its surface roughened by the rain.

They had come up here many times, she and Byakuya; a ritual of domesticity: to walk to the family shrine when the sun was high. He came here alone often enough too. "Rukia!" Kaien was behind her. Had she really run so fast? She skidded to a halt by the lake and turned towards the shrines.

And froze.

A cloud of pale blossoms, lilac in the grey light had coalesced around the shape of a monstrous hollow. As she watched, those same blossoms closed in, breaking apart the demon's body, shriving inwards towards a smaller and smaller point. Blood began to spurt out around the filaments and two heads, adorned with snouted fish-skulls, writhed, screaming from the mass. She saw them dislocate from the rest of the monstrosity and fly towards the water, two air-borne eels. Passing above her. Now pursued by the cloud of blossoms. Those pale, glassy shards came first in thin streams, the greater mass of them still focussed on the rest of the hollow's body, but, as she stood there, the rest began to roll outwards. A tide of lilac and pink crashing towards the lake, slicing through shrubs and grasses and the branches of trees. Each one was a razor-sharp blade. A thousand blazing towards her and a sound like the ocean. "Byakuya!" Kaien screamed a warning.

She made no effort to protect herself. Why not, she would wonder later. Had she really been that sure?

The wave was inches from her when it parted. Split into two. Rolled on, to either side of her. Its passage lifted her hair back from her face and tore through the edges of her sleeves. Had she moved just an inch to one side or the other, it would have caught her, easily tearing her to pieces. Yet it didn't. And she just stood there, the hissing so loud in her ears that it felt like wind sheers. She didn't need to look behind her to know that it had enveloped the two eels, dismembering them long before they could reach the water.

Byakuya stood in the clearing ahead of her, beneath the gateway to one of the shrines, his white _haori _seeming to glow in the after-dusk. He stood with his back to her, but one arm stretched out behind his body; in his hand, the hilt of his _zanpakuto. _The hilt only.

The cloud of _sakura _blossoms raced back across the water, arcing into the air now so that it was far above her head as it passed and, as she watched, it dove down towards the hilt of his sword. Within seconds, the hundred thousand blades had reformed into a single one.

The lessening of pressure felt suddenly like a muting, as if the whole of the world had been swallowed up into a giant's belly. Rukia took a deep breath. The air was cold and damp and it seemed to her that it was the first time she had tasted it tonight. The rain had stopped.

Byakuya turned towards her. He was angry. It showed nowhere in his expression but for his eyes. And Kaien, suddenly in front of Rukia, looked from her to Byakuya and back, then turned and all but gathered her into his arms in his relief. He had his hands on her shoulders, shaking her. She kept staring over his shoulder at her brother.

"Shiba! Report immediately to the Captain-Commander that there was a hollow in the _Sereitei. _Send hell butterflies to the captains of each of the divisions."

"You're alright?" Kaien demanded of Rukia before straightening to face his superior. "Yes, Sir. But, Captain Kuchiki, Sir, did you realise she was there?"

"Of course I realised, or she would be dead." There was a metallic chink as he returned his sword to its _seya. _He approached without looking at Rukia and lowered his voice: "I left her in your care. What is she doing in my way when I am confronting an enemy?" Kaien dipped his head in something that might have been a bow, but didn't answer. "Is your squad so undisciplined you cannot even account for your subordinates?"

"With respect, Sir, we were both concerned when we sensed you had released your sword."

"What, I wonder, did you think you would do in the event that I was overpowered?"

"_Nii-sama, _you're injured!" Rukia gasped before Kaien could answer. Indeed, there was enough blood coursing down the length of her brother's arm that she could tell at once the wound was not shallow. He glanced down, if anything, seemingly more vexed by the fact that she had noticed:

"I will make my way to the First Division via the Fourth Squad barracks."

"Please let me help you."

"It is not necessary."

"_Nii-sama" – _

"She can," said Kaien. There was such certainty in his voice that it was almost a challenge. Byakuya hesitated, studying the two of them:

"Shiba, I gave you an order."

"Yes, Sir." And with one last glance at Rukia, Kaien's figure blurred into _shunpo _and he vanished in the direction of the First Division precinct. Byakuya turned towards his adopted sister, his expression bringing her up short. She opened her mouth to speak, realised she couldn't and simply stood there, transfixed by the rare traces of emotion in her brother's eyes. She flinched when he shucked back the sleeve of his _haori _and knelt down.

The wound on his arm was, as she had expected, a deep and ugly gash. As she whispered the incantation that would begin the healing she was aware of the _reiatsu _of the hollow that had left it. Like dipping her hands into filth. She didn't let him see that though, and nor did she raise her eyes. As far as he was concerned this must be like any other wound she had treated. He must not know that his presence was a strain on her.

When she finished there was not even the silvery line of a scar on his forearm. He ran his hand across the new skin and straightened. The edge of anger was gone. His eyes seemed dark now and almost beautiful in the low light. For all that they shared their living space, it was a rare thing that they were alone together and she teetered on the edge of expecting reprimand or gratitude. He gave her neither.

"Go home now, Rukia."

"I should" –

He waited as she stumbled over her words. She hadn't expected that. She'd assumed he would keep on, as he usually did, insistent in his orders. He didn't. He waited to see what she would say, his expression curious and strangely soft, making her realise that she had not, in fact, planned out her objections. She settled, instead, for bowing from the waist, the way they did in the squads, before turning back onto the path that led down towards the mansion and setting off at a light jog. It did occur to her, a few strides farther on, that she was perhaps running away from him. And that that was easier than continuing to meet his eyes.

Kaien was waiting for her in the gatehouse to the mansion, leaning against the door. His usual joviality, dampened by the rain and recent events. He focussed a keen gaze over her shoulders just to be sure that Byakuya was not following. "I thought you were going to First Division," she said, ducking into the alcove.

"Said I'd walk you home earlier, didn't I? Thought I'd try and make sure you got in through the door this time."

"If Byakuya sees you here" –

"What's the urgency? That hollow's dead, Rukia. In fact, I don't think it could get any deader. Remind me not to mess with your brother!" When she didn't respond, he continued: "I've heard others talk about his sword release; I've just never seen it myself before. He's got an extraordinary amount of precision. Luckily for you." He nudged his fist into her arm: "If you'd stood in front of my sword release, I don't think you'd be here right now."

"Sorry, I" – she looked away. Yes, it had been stupid, but there was something else too. She'd been afraid. Terribly afraid. Not for herself or Kaien.

For Byakuya then.

"What were you thinking?"

"That he'd be hurt" –

"Him? I've got two centuries on him and I'm not even close to his level."

"You've" – she looked at him askance and smiled slyly – "Yeah right."

"I am old, Rukia-_chan."_

"Seriously?"

"And I've never seen anyone so young wield that kind of power."

She glanced back towards the path down which she'd come. Byakuya scared her. That was the truth of it. He'd never hurt her. He'd never asked anything of her. But the kind of creeping existence she'd grown accustomed too: always treading with care, living inside another person's life. She was an ornament to his existence; those were the things that, day to day, wore at her. As well as the sense that, as time wore on, she became more and more a part of him and less of herself. As if she was fading. What else made her fear for him? Not affection. Only the sense that he might carry her own life away with his.

She blinked away the thought and tried to pull herself back into the present moment. Kaien was gazing at her with open concern.

"I should go now."

"But you'll give some serious thought to what I said, right?" he said. "Not the bit about you looking like his wife" – he grinned – "I mean, about the officer position. You'd need to work for it, but I think it might be possible; in a year, two years."

"Thank you. I am grateful," she said, and then she bowed: "I will do my best."

As she slipped into the gardens of the mansion between the double gates, she glanced back once at her vice-captain, where he slouched in the door-frame; only his eyes caught the light in the shadow of the old walls.

She would do her best and, perhaps, a year from now, things would be different.


	4. Chapter 4

Disgraced.

A year from that day, she'd been as close to leaving the _Gotei _as she'd ever come. She'd been placed on trial for murder.

The proceedings were a sham, largely circumvented by her brother's speaking on her behalf, but she'd been removed from active duty, housebound for a time. She'd overheard a conversation between Juushiro and Byakuya in which both acknowledged that she should leave the Thirteenth Division if at all possible. Since no other squad would accept her however, they'd faced an impasse: either remove her from the ranks of the _shinigami _altogether or gradually re-instate her amongst Ukitake's men. And they'd decided on the latter.

A year from that day, she had chosen to keep living. Because she was a survivor, and he had asked her to remember that.

Kaien was dead. He was dead within two weeks of their conversation, and though it had seemed important at the time, in the wake of his death, it had taken on an even greater resonance. Still, it was not until now that she remembered the small details: the rain, the smell of meat and roasting corn, the way he'd leant down to whisper in her ear: _has no-one ever asked you that?_ The way he had challenged her brother. Waited for her in the doorway and watched until she'd passed out of sight. It reminded her of the afternoon when Ichigo had watched her after he'd defeated the Grand Fisher; she'd left him on the path through the graveyard. His eyes followed her long after she must have faded away into the shadows. And with both of them she'd had the same sense that a part of them watched her still. That she was not entirely alone.

She sat bolt upright in the darkness. Through the narrow window in the wall of the Shrine, the faint illuminations of the _Seireitei _were enough for her to see her hands pinched tight over the white robe she wore. She reached up and touched the collar at her throat. Death was coming. Kaien hadn't known, back then. He'd had no warning. No time to make peace with his own memories.

What do you want, Kuchiki Rukia?

To run away, she thought, and that's exactly what I did without you, Kaien-_dono,_ but look where it brought me. Right back here. And he came again and found me, my brother. My punishment for ever believing I was free.

You sure as hell don't put up much of a fight for yourself.

Fourteen days, she thought.


	5. Chapter 5

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**There are quite a few one-shots in the upcoming series. I hope you don't mind. It's just the way I originally wrote it before I knew I was going to upload it all. (I blame Kaien; for some reason, he seems to have made me write one-shots)!**

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